India's largest ed-tech company BYJU's with over six million paying users, and a 85% renewal rate, has had an outstanding business in India, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic began. However, behind this meteoric rise lies customer disputes related to refunds and deficiency of services, parents being pushed into debt burden, and unsatisfied employees who were bullied with aggressive targets, the BBC reported. BYJU's is an ed-tech startup started in the year 2011. The success of the ed-tech startup can be marked by the pandemic, as the schools were closed and children were made to attend online classes. And in such situation, BYJU's being an online tutoring platform appealed both parents and children
BYJU's success and dispute | Key points
1. Initiated by Byju Raveendran in 2011, BYJU's is the world's highest-valued edtech start-up which is funded by Facebook(now Meta) founder Mark Zuckerberg's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and major private equity firms such as Tiger Global and General Atlantic.
2. The success of the edtech company was evident since the pandemic hit the world, which brought a sudden change in the school curriculum, where schools were shut and classes shifted from offline to online. This was the time when BYJU's appealed to both parents and children.
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3. But the success of the startup came with a lot of problems to be dealt with by the parents and their children.The BBC spoke to many parents, according to whom the edtech giant's promised services never materialised. Which includes its one-on-one tutoring and mentor. But the company's sales tactics cost a lot in their pockets and gave rise to their insecurities . "Tactics included incessant cold calls and sales pitches whose effect was to convince them that their child will be left behind if they don't buy a BYJU'S product".
4. However, BYJU's denied the allegations and with a statement given to BBC, company said "only if the student and parent sees value in our product and develop trust do they purchase it".
5. With a further step the BBC approached BYJU former employees who complained of "pushy managers", and aggressive targets, all that affected their mental health. "12-15 hour work days were a regular feature of their job, and staff who couldn't clock 120 minutes of 'talk-time' with potential customers were marked absent, resulting in loss of pay for that day", Several employees also complained to BBC.
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6. To this BYJU'S, however, said that their "employee culture does not permit any misbehavior or bad behavior towards parents" and that "all rigorous checks and balances are in place to prevent misuse and abuse". "All organisations have rigorous but fair sales targets and BYJU's is no exception," the firm said. They further added keeping in mind about the employees' health and comfort, they offered a robust training programme.
7. Meanwhile, the edtech company has been ordered by the consumer courts in India to pay damages to customers in disputes related to refunds and deficiency of services in at least three different cases, the report said. Not just this but BYJU's also has hundreds of complaints against it in online consumer and employee forums. But, BYJU's noted that they had reached a settlement in these legal cases, and their grievance redressal rate was 98 per cent, the report said.
